May 25, 1980

Found: A Subject

By HERBERT MITGANG

aving once written the life of a significant character, biographers often find themselves faced with a problem: whom to write about next. The biographer who has portrayed a President or some other public figure may be reluctant to concentrate on a minor subject -- yet there are only so many giants around to challenge the imagination.

Biographer Joseph P. Lash, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Eleanor and Franklin," was faced with a rather different problem: an embarrassment of riches. Instead of his planned work on the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, the historian-journalist found another subject that he couldn't resist. And so he turned to a different 20th-century legend: Helen Keller.

Mr. Lash's "Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy," will be published as a Merloyd Lawrence Book from Seymour Lawrence / Delacorte Press. It is part of a Radcliffe College biography series that includes a life of Margaret Fuller by Paula Blanchard and two "Women in Crisis" books by Robert Coles and Jane Hallowell Coles. After "Eleanor and Franklin" and "Roosevelt and Churchill," he put aside his study of the wartime Big Three -- Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin -- because of his fascination with the genius of the blind woman and of her teacher, "the miracle worker."

"When I was invited to write the story," Mr. Lash said, "My first instinct was to decline. But my wife pointed out that it was an honor for a man to write a biography of a woman in this feminist age. Then I reread Helen Keller's 'The Story of My Life.' I told Dr. Matina Horner, president of Radcliffe, that I would take on the book if there was new material in the archives of the American Foundation for the Blind. The archives had been closed to everyone except a small circle of Helen Keller intimates. A sampling of the letters, diaries and clippings from the archives persuaded me that there was a book that I could write."

Mr. Lash found the relationship between the two women fascinating. Both were strong personalities, one reason for their clashes and successes. "Helen and Teacher" includes little-known episodes about Miss Keller's romantic life. The book's publication coincides with a Helen Keller Centennial Congress in Boston on June 23. Mr. Lash will address the opening session.